Ibn al-Sāʿī said: the roster of his teachers comprised three thousand (1) shaykhs and four hundred women.
He was offered lodgings in the Ribāṭ Shaykh al-Shuyūkh, but he refused, saying, “I have three hundred dinars with me, and it is not lawful for me to draw on a charitable endowment.” Later, when the Mustanṣiriyyah college opened, he had fallen into poverty, so he was appointed there as an instructor (2) in the science of ḥadīth.
Among his works are: al-Qamar al-Munīr fī al-Musnad al-Kabīr, in which he listed every Companion together with the ḥadīths attributed to him; Kanz al-Imām fī al-Sunan wa-l-Aḥkām; al-Muʾtalif wa-l-Mukhtalif, a supplement to the amir Ibn Mākūlā’s book; al-Muttafiq wa-l-Muftariq; Intisāb (3) al-Muḥaddithīn ilā al-Ābāʾ wa-l-Buldan; a volume of his ʿAwālī (high-chain narrations); Jannat al-Nāẓirīn fī Maʿrifat al-Tābiʿīn; al-ʿAqd al-Fāʾiq; and al-Kamāl fī al-Rijāl.
I read to him his Dhayl al-Tārīkh (Supplement to the History). He also authored al-Durar al-Thamīnah fī Akhbār al-Madīnah; Rawḍat al-Awliyāʾ fī Masjid Īliyāʾ; Nuzhat al-Qurā fī Dhikr Umm al-Qurā; al-Azhār fī Anwāʿ al-Ashʿār; ʿUyūn al-Fawāʾid, in six volumes; Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī; and other works besides. He appointed me as his executor and endowed his books to the Niẓāmiyyah, whereupon the steward (al-Sharābī) (4) sent me one hundred dinars for the preparation of his funeral.
A number of poets composed elegies for him; he was truly one of the adornments of the world.
He died on the fifth of Shaʿbān in the year 643 AH.
Ibn al-Najjār says in his biography of Ibn Dihyah: “When I entered Egypt he summoned me…”